I'm the Classical CD Guy at [a major record store] in San Francisco, and lemme tell you, we get all sorts of odd pronunciations and howlers.

My favorite was when a customer came in trying to find something he'd heard on the radio. He had written down what the announcer had said as "Colony: Dry By a Brook." He knew little about it, other than that it was classical.

I managed to narrow down by questioning that it was for a solo instrument (he couldn't remember if it was accompanied), probably stringed, kind of low. He didn't have a vocabulary to say much else about it, except that he said it was, "um... kinda... Jewish?"

The light went on, and I led him to a fortunately loaded and working listening station, where he confirmed by listening that it was, as I had guessed, Kol Nidrei by Bruch.

Anyway, if you've not enjoyed the magic that is Wing singing, do yourself a favor: close the office door, put on your headphones, and click here right now.

Also worth your time is the astonishing pianism of Cindy Elizondo, fourth runner-up of the 2000 Miss Texas pageant, who was featured in my previous post on Wing. (My apologies to long-time readers for the rehash, but I'm sure you'll agwee that Wing is worth rewisiting.)

I've just learned that Leonardo da Vinci is my Dead Celebrity Soulmate! This strikes me as strangely and surprisingly appropriate. I wonder what he'd think of Isaac Hayes's Theme from Shaft, another strangely appropriate match. Would he dig it?

A recorder player has fascinated neuroscientists with her ability to taste differences in the intervals between notes. [...] As [Elizabeth Sulston] began to learn music more formally, she found that when hearing particular tone intervals she experienced a characteristic taste on her tongue. For example, a minor third tasted salty to her, whereas a minor sixth tasted like cream. She started to use the tastes to help her recognize different chords. [...]

To test her unique ability, [Lutz Jäncke, neuroscientist] and his colleagues played tone intervals while delivering different tastes to her tongue. They used either the same taste that Sulston associates
with an interval, or a clashing one (see box). They found that she was able to identify the intervals much more quickly when the taste matched the one that she says she normally associates with it. That kind of pattern would be difficult to fake, Jäncke says.

The scene: The Starbucks Licensed Stores Awards ceremony, a celebratory/motivational leadership conference, held this evening in the fourth-floor ballroom of the Washington State Convention Center. "Boring stuff, as usual corporate things go," writes our man Cilantro.

But things took a turn for the surreal when the emcee announced "something special for you all—Jefferson Starbucks!" after which the hydraulic stage rotated to reveal a pretend band
comprised of the upper-management folk the audience had heard speak earlier in the evening.

"They were standing in front of a huge American Bandstand-esque 45 single dangling in the air," writes Cilantro. "And they all had on rock 'n' roll Halloween costumes: pink glitter wigs, white fishnet shirts, fake leather pants, as well as big fake instruments—a huge, oversized piñata guitar and keyboards. It was like a living cake decoration."

From this most promising of plateaus, Jefferson Starbucks quickly ascended to the heavens, lip-synching their way through a company-specific rewrite of Jefferson Starship's "We Built This City," the 1985 anthem that made fresh headlines last year by topping an international critics' poll of the worst songs ever.

But tonight, Starship's crap was Starbucks' gold, as "We Built This City On Rock 'n' Roll" was reborn as "We Built This Starbucks on Heart and Soul!" with lyrics rewritten to celebrate the Starbucks way:

Knee-deep in the mocha/making coffee right
So many partners/working late at night
We just want to build here—IMDS, does it pass?
We call on development to complete the task!
Living the way of being,
In the Green Apron Book!
Don't you remember?
We built this Starbucks on heart and soul!

The rewrite even replicated the weird helicopter news report that appears in the middle of the original: "I'm looking out over hundreds of partners on another fantastic leadership conference and I'm seeing a bunch of everyday heroes!"

"I couldn't fucking believe it," writes Cilantro. "The rest of the crowd was stunned, too. Eventually, the emcee berated them—'Come on you guys! Dance! This is your band! This is for you!'—and the crowd half-heartedly got up and just stood there." (A moment of silence for the million silent deaths experienced by the audience during the song's merciless four-minute-and-48-second running time.)

Best of all, before his departure, Cilantro was given his very own copy of the inexhaustibly mind-blowing song, pressed onto souvenir CDs and distributed with pride by Starbucks
stars.

Dear Cilantro: Thank you for surviving and sharing. Humanity is forever in your debt.

The strangest thing in the broadcast [of Andrew Sullivan on Real Time with Bill Maher] happened when the show was over. The panelists stood, Sullivan's back to the camera, and as the credits rolled, he began squeezing, massaging his own buttocks with his hands. I thought he might be trying to dislodge a thong strap that had run up rather deep, but no, he seemed to be feeling up his own butt. I've never seen anything quite like it, unless I was hallucinating, and if I start hallucinating about Andrew Sullivan copping a feel of his own butt, it's time to check into the clinic for a little Elizabeth Wurtzel layoff.